I thought this was a fun watch. Guy writes a paper on programming a computer to learn how to play Super Mario Bros., and by extension other videogames, by focusing on increasing certain data values in the game. In other words, it's a singleminded, score chasing machine.

It's funny when it doesn't work and pretty interesting when it starts to exploit bugs in the games. It also seems to have a little existential moment at the end while playing Tetris badly.